ANALOG PLUS 50: Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact July 1971

ANALOG PLUS 50: Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact, July 1971

The seventh issue in my Analog Deep Dive. For anyone finding these reviews, my purpose is two-fold: enjoying some "classic" sci-fi, and looking for stories that I think could be adapted for TV broadcast since so much of what shows up on anthology shows is rough to awful.

At some point, I'll stop numbering, but probably not until I do this for at least a year. If I do this for a year.

In this issue:

The Editorial: "Balance and Ecology", by John. W. Campbell. John starts by talking about the Saturn V rockets being launched from a nature preserve and the animals don't seem to mind this. Or at the very least, the people that designed these launches didn't mind it. That said, everyone in the press there has to be kept a large distance away. As it is, everyone will become temporarily deaf as the sound of the rocket launching in person (as opposed to televised) is louder than humans can comprehend.

John finds the arguments against the SST silly, as animals ignore the shock waves as they would ignore thunder, thanks to eons of evolution. This leads into balance problems such as the use of DDT vs cases of malaria. Using DDT is Ceylon caused damage to bird eggs and oxygen in the ocean. Not using it caused 2.5 million deaths due to malaria. Which side do you think people would come down on? Likewise, there were too many elephants in one place in Africa for farmers to grow food. Rather than euthanize some of the elephants, they were herded onto a preserve which couldn't sustain them. The pachyderms knocked down trees and stripped them of every piece of nourishment leaving only what could feed termites. It was an ecological disaster that wouldn't be easily remedied.

Sadly, nothing has changed in 50 years where we will still do things for show and because it "feels" right or it "sends a message" that "we care", and then the longer-term effects bite us in the buttocks.

Short Novel: "Zero Sum" by Joseph P. Martino, with an illustration by Kelly Freas, showing a bunch of marble-shaped spaceships in a spherical formation being attached at teardrop-shaped ships, while two men in uniforms (and mohawks) stand on a platform and watch. The caption reads, Any intelligent race will fight on for justice -- particularly when they know they're winning steadily... Until they find they've bled to death!

Commander Arnold Johnson is the Tactics Officer who calculates the best strategy and even using polyhedral dice to add a random element into his decisions, making them harder to guess. The Terrans are at war with the Khorilani, who seem to be an odd race that don't press their advantage or use the best strategies. As a result, Terrans tend to do better than they hypothetically should.

The Terrans learn more about the Khorilani when they take over a mining colony where everyone had committed suicide. They also find a ship where everyone has committed suicide, which they attempt to secure.

Johnson finally figures that they are a group-think culture where individuals are disposable but things, such as ships and planetary resources, have value. In both war and negotiations, the Khorilani were operating from a different set of principles and perspective. Neither side was likely to yield in the war because the way each side calculated a successful campaign, each side thought they were winning.

I don't know how long something has to be to be considered a "short novel" instead of a Novella of a Novellette. This could easily be adpated to television. The sets could be basic and generic. In fact, the Khorilani quarters were literally identical, so they could be reused. THere's enough action and enough cerebral goings-on to keep most happy. The crews can be diversely cast.

Short Story: "The Man with the Anteater" by F. Paul Wilson, with an illustration by Kelly Freas, showing an alien looking anteater in the foreground, with a circle of space and stars in the background, along with a sun with a big dollar sign. An alien landscape is also in the background. The caption reads, Anyone who keeps a pet anteater in a stringently limited society is obviously a crackpot. But some crackpots have highly methodical cracks in their pots ...

Joe Finch has an anteater (ant-bear) named Andy. Some think him a reactionary hero moving at his own pace, and other thought he was stupid, thick-head, etc. Finch wanted to manipulate Chief Adminstrator of Earth, Arthur Gordon, a social idealist or power monger, who likely wanted to manipulate Finch. He wants to promtoe a "right man for the right job" society where people serve in the capacity that they are best fit for. Finch, of course, undermines this because it doesn't take into account what the person might want to do.

You can guess who wins. TV writers would eat this story up. Actually, now that I type that, this story would probably only work if the writers now could control themselvs from tampering with it too badly. Their message is already there but sometimes they can't helpt themselves with the sledgehammer

Science Fact: "Spacewar" by Albert W. Kuhfeld. There is no image. The caption reads, "For nearly a dozen years, I've been trying to get an article on the remarkable educational game invented at MIT. It's a great game, involving genuine skill in solving velocity and angular relation problems -- but I'm afraid it will never be widely popular. The playing 'board' costs about a quarter of a megabuck!"

This is an nteresting account of the "Wayback Machine" because the game described could probably be coded by high school students to play on any household PC -- and probably could've been there 30 years ago! It's two spaceships flying at each other firing a limited supply of missiles, which not being dragged into the sun in the center of the board. And you didn't have to solve any math problems -- kids could pick it up pretty quickly just recognizing the movements of the ships. It was a fun read.

Novelette: "A Little Edge" by S. Kye Boult, with an illustration by Vincent di Fate, showing some retro-futuristic biplanes entering a battle with scaling winged creatures with two very alien-looking creatures with claws and taloned feet, and spears. There are more flying from a circular object in the background. (It looks like a moon, but that wouldn't make sense.) The caption reads, "There can be situations in which War is the only possible answer -- and Peace negotiations completely impossible. Where annihilation of the enemy is the only answer--"

Another war story but this one one a planet with mountains and jungles and islands in mud seas. Baron Amarson leads a group of men (no cubs here) into battle against the Drak using the newest inventions of Ambassador Theiu of the River People to the south. The new flying machines can rapid fire darts to take out the enemy. The mission is to test out the equipment. They fly across the mud sea and encounter more Drak than they expected and they have to fight their way out of there and back home.

This could make a decent TV story if they spent money on the budget, and if they didn't try to make this a story about colonization of new planets, which it isn't.

Serial: "The Outposter" by Gordon R. Dickson, part 3 of 3. Conclusion. "Things are seldom what they seem" and no one ever suggested that Man is the only intelligence to use bluff. But it takes more than a little guts to try to outbluff a race of spacefearing pirates!
I'll get back to this later. As it is by Gordon R. Dickson, I will definitely get back to it.

Short Story: "Poltergeist" by James H. Schmitz, with an illustration by Kelly Freas, showing high cliff walls in the background and a tree and a person being blown over in the foreground. The caption reads, "Any power -- any talent -- anything can be used for good or evil. Sometimes only destruction can be good."

This is another Telzey Amberdon story. (That's two in two months, and the fourth or fifth since January.) This one takes place when she'd only known about her Psi abilities for a few months. It takes place on the bay of a lake on Orado. Telzey finds a man lying face down in the sand, and he warns her away. Immediately, some force tries to kill Telzy with an avalanche. Her boat is wrecked and she's stuck there. Dal Axwen believes he is being haunted by something that wants to mock him and then kill him. This he believes but he doesn't believe is Psis or mind-reading abilities. Go figure.

It's not a hard guess to realize that the man himself is a psi, and the poltergeist of the story is his own subconscious, which Telzey is forced to deal with.

Short, but interesting. I don't know that there's enough for a televised story, but it definitely would be cheaper than many others to put on screen. Out of curiosity, I checked and there were many stories in the years before "Telzey Toy" in January 1971. In fact, many were collected and repacked by Baen Books in the early 2000s. This might be something worth looking into.

The Reference Library , by P. Schuyler Miller.
There's an Australian Science Fiction Index, Nightmare Age, edited by Frederik Pohl, which contains one story that I actually remember reading in high school, "The Marching Morons", which was in a different collection, Chronocules by D. G. Compton, and One Million Tomorrows, by Bob Shaw.

Brass Tacks: Nothing much of interest. There was one two-column letter to which John had a three-column response

Unlisted: "The Lost City of Ledtintell". There's a quick three paragraph story about the ruins of a 22 billion year old structure to accompany the illustration on the next page. This is followed by the reveal that it is a photo of needles of crystal growth of lead-tin-telluride (check the title again) taken with an electron microscope.

Honestly, that set-up could've led to something.

On to August, and whatever else is in the TBR stacks in Kindle, iBooks, and the physical nightstand.